A Psalm to Shaddai

Yesterday morning I was driving along Broadway at about 27th street. I saw someone coming toward me in the street, pushing an overflowing shopping cart, his head barely reaching over the top of the handles, long gray hair flowing over his shoulders, a pink baseball cap on his head. I looked at him when I passed him, turning my head. Then I wondered if it was a man or a woman. I looked again into the rear-view mirror, intrigued. I saw that she was a woman, wearing a pink and white skirt with an uneven hem, reaching almost to her ankles. I thought about her as I drove on. My first thoughts were about how she must have loved to find that pink and white used skirt somewhere. Maybe someone gave it to her and she smiled and laughed with joy for a moment, happy to be able to wear pink again. And it would go with her pink baseball cap, already on her head every day as she walked the streets, pushing her only belongings in a shopping cart. I began to wonder about her children. Where were they? Would they drive up and down Broadway on Mother's Day, looking for their mother? Or had they given up on her long ago, knowing that the depression and the alcohol would never leave, that she was destined to walk the streets? I thought about her as a young woman then, with babies. She must have sung to her babies. Don't all mothers? And probably she prayed for her babies, too, even if she wasn't that good at taking care of them herself. Don't all mothers? I remembered, then, a song my mother sang to me when I was a little girl. "Maria, Maria, Maria, mala, Mala, melinke Maria..." "Mary, Mary, Mary of mine, my little Mary..." (Ukrainian) I wonder if her mother sang it to her, too, although I know her childhood was sad, he mother often unable to care for her and the others. It's amazing, too, that my mother gave me a song the night before she died, as she lay in a coma, and I sat quietly at her bedside. It was during a real moment of quiet, as I looked past her bed out the window, at the night streets. Suddenly, a song came into my head, a song I had not thought about in years. I sang it to her: "How can I help to make you understand, why I do, what I do? Going away to a distant land, far from the home I love?" And I knew then, through the words of the song, what a melancholy journey into death she had to make, melancholy but whole/complete/right. A few days ago I was in the check-out line at Long's. The woman checker was saying a robust: "Happy Mother's Day" to every woman she served. When it came my turn, I said to her: "Happy Mother's Day!" "You too!" she answered. I hesitated, then I said, "Do you have any children?" "Two," she said, "and two grandchildren." I hesitated again and said, "Well, actually, I don't have any children... but I do have a congregation!" "That's good," she said. "That's real good!" The Psalm you heard read today is from "Woman Wisdom: A Feminist Lectionary and Psalter," written by Miriam Therese Winter, a Medical Missionary Sister who writes and teaches liturgy. In this book she focuses on "Women of the Hebrew Scriptures." And in this Psalm she uses an interesting name for God: Shaddai. We are accustomed, from time to time in Christian Churches, to hear God called "El-ohim." This is the Hebrew, which refers to God as "God-Almighty, Omnipotent." "El-Shaddai" is another name given to God, in the Hebrew Scriptures, to Old Testament. This is the Hebrew which refers to God as "All sufficient, the One who satisfies the abundant blessings of the breasts and the womb." It's always amazing to me that these words are in the scriptures. It's always amazing to me that when the Bible stories are told, they are almost always the stories of men. Weren't the women there? Where were the women? A few weeks ago we celebrated Easter Sunday. In the Gospel message from Mark, it is incredibly important and interesting that the women were the first to go to the tomb, to see the angel, to see that the body of Jesus was gone. And in that Gospel lesson, the women are the ones who tell the men what they have seen! Of course, the men don't believe the women, so they go off to the tomb to see for themselves! And it is also interesting that in the second lesson for Easter Day, a reading from the letters of St. Paul, he relates what happened on Easter by saying, "and he appeared to Peter..." What happened to the women in those 80 years? Why were they forgotten? In the Protestant tradition of the Church, we are particularly bereft of images of women, and of feminine images of God. We threw Mary out with the bathwater in the Protestant Churches! Yet Mary has not disappeared, she is present to us in the Roman Catholic Church. And the feminine has always been present in the writings of the mystics of the Christian Church. There she is, powerful and wonderful, waiting to be acknowledged. Mary in the Catholic tradition is the feminine aspect of God. In Goethe's Faust she is the "eternal feminine" that is present in all human beings, male or female. She is the nurturing side of us all, the one who loves with her whole being. She is the one who listens, who cares, who sings to us. She is powerful and wonderful, waiting to be acknowledged. In Dante's Paradiso she is described as "the love that moves the sun and all the other stars." Can you see her? Can you speak to her? What is she saying to you now, at this point in your life? What is she singing to you? What is her song?An image from an African spiritual, "Wasn't That a Wonder," describes her as "the woman clothed with the sun, moon under her feet." We need her, this Mary, this Mother, this Holy One, this Goddess, this Singer, this Lover. The world needs her, now more then ever.What is her song? We hear her song in the cries of the mother, giving birth to her child. We hear her song in the strong arms of a young father, holding his child for the first time. We hear her song in the sparkling eyes of the grandfather, playing with his granddaughter. We hear her song in the faces of the old women, lined up at the door of our church, waiting to be given a bag of food this time. We hear her song in the woman who is walking this morning on some other street in Oakland, pushing her cart, wearing a pink baseball cap and a white and pink skirt. We hear her song in the cries of the mothers, grieving for the children they have lost, to war, to drugs, to gang wars on the streets. Listen for her song. And when you hear it, sing it to her...

Home | Sunday Schedule | How to Find Us | Staff | Facility Rental
Upcoming Events and Programs | About Us | Sermons

An open and welcoming Christian congregation
serving God in downtown Oakland.